Ranvir half-heartedly paid attention to Alexis as she finished scribing the circle into the stone. Even his lack luster consideration was enough to tell him she’d reproduced it. Not perfectly, or even great, but it was functional. Already it was drawing in the ambient mana.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Amalia said, grasping her shoulder. “Come on, we’ll go carve another one out.”

Alexis, wide eyed and shaking, nodded. Ranvir couldn’t tell if her reaction was from fear, excitement, or some combination of the two. She glanced in his direction again, just as he finally caught his footing.

The creature Ranvir was wrestling reminded him of the lizards he’d seen in Korfyi. Except the size of a door and as heavy as a cart. He slammed the scaly creature onto its back on the stone. Placing one foot on its belly, Ranvir finally had the leverage to end the fight. The jaw shattered and crumpled before he ripped it off completely. The creature lashed futilely with its tail, its entire body shaking with its hissing death cry.

He staggered away from the corpse, wavering a moment before catching himself. Exhaling loudly, Ranvir turned to the others. Alexis watched him like he’d just beaten her dog to death. Cat probably, considering she was from Korfyi. Amalia raised a single eyebrow, staring at him challengingly.

Amanaris

***

Sandstorm Rage Ability Score increase: 307 -> 308

Ranvir shook his arm out, muscles twitching in his upper arm. His jaw ached all the way to his ear, his hip flared with pain from each step, and a hundred smaller injuries burned from the salty air. Pain, its existence a lacy network of orange, stretching across Ranvir’s entire existence.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Didn’t expect it to be so heavy,” and Ranvir hadn’t. The creature was far heavier than he felt it should’ve been. He couldn’t tell if this was an effect of mana, it being a first-order creature, or simply that it was a big four-legged animal and just weighed more than a similar sized human.

“You should probably begin drinking some of that tea,” Latresekt suggested. “The pain’s getting to you, slowing you down, making you sloppy.”

Ranvir would’ve challenged the spirit on its statement, if he didn’t think it was right. He was just so tired of thólos mushrooms, whether or not they were in tea. Disgusting, sludgy and off-putting. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, dragging it away from his eyes. At least with it nearly constantly wet and salty, he could mostly stick it behind the ears without trouble.

“Next time,” Ranvir said to himself. “I’m bringing more hair ties.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, go on ahead,” he waved them off. “Amalia, you can keep her safe from the stuff crawling around up here. I’m going in the other direction, and see if I can’t plant a few circles myself.”

Amalia nodded, her arm still wrapped around Alexis’ shoulder. “Come on.”

He watched them go before scanning the environment. Circles had been going off regularly for the past four hours now and he would’ve said they were making no noticeable change, but… He turned into the wind. For nearly the first time since entering the fold, there was fresh wind without rain. It was enough that waves were splashing against the pillars near constantly, though not enough to run over them yet.

Rolling his neck and swinging his arm, Ranvir aimed at a pillar and jumped.

Rain drizzled across the fold. From Ranvir’s perch on top of a growth of fyla stone, he could barely see more than a couple pillars away. Despite his heightened perception, his regular senses were nearly entirely limited to his local surroundings.

Once the rain started, the fold had gone quiet. It was still windy, but the precipitation was like a fluffy wool blanket to the senses. Even now, he could only distantly hear the low swell of waves. The occasional gust of wind could knock the drops sideways and undo a little of the damper on his senses.

More interestingly, the creatures that had swarmed the upper area just two hours ago were completely gone. No activity above the waters. Even Mercy’s Redoubt had briefly stopped to step into the rain. Seeing as how they’d been siphoning it through the circles, it was one of the few rare opportunities to get wet without also getting crusted in a layer of salt.

Amalia had, thankfully, been able to separate water and salt. She had regularly made Ranvir and Alexis douse themselves in the water so she could pull the brine off them.

This wasn’t something Ranvir had realized they should worry about. Back on Vednar, they had no saltwater lakes, so it hadn’t been an issue. The sea bordering Limclea had become salty from the deposits, but he hadn’t actually been far enough down the rivers for the water to turn from fresh.

Looking up, Ranvir could see the cloud cover gathering. The most mysterious thing about folds to him, was perhaps that the skyline wasn’t an impenetrable void. The Orykto fold looked like a regular sky most of the time, whereas his pocket-spaces looked like they were suspended in an unending black abyss.

Of course, right now he couldn’t compare his pocket-space to the fold, not with the heavy cloud cover. The fold had little room left, with all the vertical space taken up by the sea, which meant he could’ve likely jumped into the clouds from where he was standing right now.

There was even a chance he could hit the top of the fold. I wonder if worldshards have a ceiling, Ranvir thought. For some reason, the idea of jumping into the sky and hitting an invisible roof felt more realistic in Korfyi than back home. Perhaps it was the suns. What with Korfyi’s just being a bronze disk in the sky.

He shook his head as his tether finally detected movement. Wind and earth mana braced were moving out from the mercenary camp. They were headed directly towards one of the nearby circles.

Ranvir observed them, too far away to see them, but close enough that he could feel them without resorting to gazing at the lines. He wished he could hear what they were saying, though. That would’ve been an interesting insight.

The braced moved quickly. Wind mana guided their movements, speeding them up while deadening the sound of their passing. Stone mana assisted their leaps, throwing them high across the waters to land safely on distant pillars. It took them only a few moments to reach the right pillar. It took considerably more time before the group found what they were looking for.

“Should I attack?” Ranvir asked. Unable to tell if the thought filled him with black dread, or dark excitement.

“No, we need them to know you’re planning something,” Latresekt replied. “They need to feel like they can actually do something, like there’s a plan to stop.”

Ranvir nodded, moments later feeling the bloom of stone mana shattering the circle. The group returned to report.

Asimina pushed in closer to the crowded table, dislodging grumpy old Stelios. The curmudgeon scowled at her, but said nothing as she was already elbowing the squad leader on her other side so he wasn’t standing too close. Sabas was generally pretty good at picking his officers, but you never knew when someone feared they were going to death more than their officers and wanted to cop a feel.

Bits of stone had fallen off the bigger slab that lay on the table. Dust, dirt, and water littered the table liberally as the circle had just been carried in. Scratched in the wood from where the stone had shifted slightly caught her attention, though perhaps she was just trying to distract herself.

A silence fell over the crowd, emphasizing the other noises of the camp. They knew the Sentinel was going to make his move soon. It was the last day of the seal, less than a score of measly hours. And he’d clearly been planning something.

The wind tore at the tents. Any loose string or flap would snap wildly in the wind. The rain fell in sheets so thick you could barely see your hand before your face, the gusts so strong it was nearly vertical.

The less physically inclined braced, were restrained entirely to the tents, as the rain was so harsh it stung their skin. She’d only just met with one of the medical crew, who’d been caught outside. His eyes were red from the droplets whipping into his eyes, and she swore the red in his cheeks was not from the cold, but the rain pressure.

This wasn’t like the weather after the serpent’s death. If it was, the storm would’ve already ended. Instead, it was only getting worse. Asimina, with her heavy defense focus, was fine outside, but even she risked slipping or falling. She almost wouldn’t dare to let Stelios fight in this weather. He was liable to kill himself by accident.

“It’s happening,” Mihail said, his soul-sight the most sensitive of all the officers. Asimina turned her attention back to the slab. It had been steadily gathering wind and water mana for nearly half a flare. She could sense it gathering in that odd circle, with all the surrounding lines. However, she now realized that it had stopped absorbing mana.

Focusing her soul-sight, she felt the mana release from the carving. In moments, the circle had released all its stored energy into the air, except it was now suffused into a single whole. From wind and water to rain.

“How many of them are there out there?” Sabas asked, his brow furrowed and glaring intently at the stone.

“It’s hard to say,” the squad leader whose men had gathered the stone said. “As many as he could carve, more than likely.”

Asimina gazed at her captain, the captain. His brow was still furrowed. This bothered their leader. Enough that he let it show. Or perhaps enough that he couldn’t keep it hidden.

With a tap of his finger and a flash of metallic silver light, the stone and carving snapped in half. “Take that to Phineus, I want all the information he can get out of it. Then tell your people to prepare for assault.”